


He Said Something

by bakers_impala221



Series: Codas [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Comforting Sam Winchester, Dean mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Panic Attacks, Se13, season 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26917561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakers_impala221/pseuds/bakers_impala221
Summary: Cas is dead. For real, dead. "All he way dead," according to that bitch-angel from the diner they'd parked at, where Dean had prayed. He'd been given signs so many times over the years. Every time Cas had seemed to die -walking to that river, plagued with Leviathans; stabbed by a reaper after weeks of homelessness- then the looming threat of "cosmic consequences" with Billie dead in a Winchester's sorry place. He'd even mentioned it; "I don't regret what I did, even if it cost me my life." So...Why hadn't he said anything?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Jack Kline & Sam Winchester
Series: Codas [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756792
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	He Said Something

After everything they’d been through together, and everything that Dean had done to save Cas’ life and get the two of them safe and alive and out of Purgatory. After everything that the angel had done for him—from abandoning his family, to waging Heaven’s civil war, Cas deserved Dean’s respect and undivided attention.

It’s just that sometimes he got so caught up in the motion of things, so focused on stopping the end of the world for the umpteenth time, he sorta-kinda forgot to regard the actual feelings of the important people around him; the ones he took for granted; the people he used to help meet ends and figure out some new, dubious way to stop whatever next big-evil shit-storm waged on their doorstep.

So when he pestered Cas into checking things out in Heaven to help figure out what’d been going on up there, and Cas had confided in him, Dean was about to speak, finally. He’d been about to speak. But then Sam barged in through that damn motel room door and interrupted, and Dean got too caught up with everything, so left it at that.

Cas had confided in him—had told him he was on the verge of dying - _again_ \- and he’d done _nothing_ -

“I’m afraid I might kill myself.”

_Why hadn’t he said something?_

Now Cas is dead. For real, dead. “All the way dead,” according to that bitch-angel from the diner they’d parked at, where Dean had prayed. He’d been given signs so many times over the years. Every time Cas had seemed to die -walking to that river, plagued with Leviathans; stabbed by a reaper after weeks of homelessness- then the looming threat of “cosmic consequences” with Billie dead in a Winchester’s sorry place. He’d even mentioned it; “I don’t regret what I did, even if it cost me my life.” So…

_Why hadn’t he said something?_

He shuts his eyes tight enough to hurt, grip on the steering wheel tightening, indenting his fingers. The skin burns in hot rings, and he clings to the sensation, longing to feel something real.

He jolts awake to a loud truck horn. The adrenaline courses through him, bright enough to shock him back to reality. But the reprieve is temporary. The coldness in the air prickling into him fades away as he floats backwards, away, into some void, and his body turns back to autopilot.

His foot slams the brake, the force enough to push him forward, and he knocks his head on the sun visor and it falls off the hook. His arm pulls at the handbrake while the other tugs the latch to swing open the door.

He falls out into the dark, blinks slowly into the distance until the still forms of silhouetted trees appear from out of the darkness, far across a field. A cool wind blows, and he barely shivers.

He walks through the grass, mud sticking to his shoes. He feels empty; a bottomless pit; an empty well, dried up with nothing left to offer.

He finds the nest—a barn rotting at the edges, plaster peeling. Shards of it lie in the mud where the grass won’t grow.

He trudges forward, night thick around him like a cloak. His feet are heavy, each step a knell, an alarm bell ringing, and the vampires find him, the vampires crowd him within the darkness. Its layers fold him in, and he’s exposed; a bright, new beacon of blood. The vampires are snarling, tongues lashing at their keen fangs. And one by one they pile on. One by one they fight for blood.

Sam follows the Impala an hour after Dean’s gone. He follows because beer-runs don’t take this long. He tracks Dean’s phone a few miles south of the bunker. There’s a green field, cast black in the night, and the grasses flow like an ocean. On instinct, Sam holds his breath. He tracks the trail; follows the footprints—indents in the mud like inverted pavestones, and it’s like he’s following breadcrumbs. It’s like he’s following breadcrumbs that don’t lead home.

He finds Dean outside in the open. There’s a derelict barn, and Sam doesn’t think of beginnings. He focuses on Dean, where his shoulders heave in the darkness; on his muffled cries, and Sam doesn’t think of the darkness, doesn’t think of the corpses. He runs over, takes his brother in his arms.

There’s blood around them, sticking to the grasses, pooling into the dirt. There’s blood on Dean’s clothes, on his skin, on his face—but Sam doesn’t pull away.

‘He’s not-’ Dean tries, and Sam strains to listen. ‘I’m not…’

‘I hoped they’d find me,’ he says into the airy space of the Impala. He doesn’t acknowledge the blood on Sam’s clothes. Instead, he fixes his eyes on the horizon. The sun still refuses to rise.

‘I thought if there were enough of ‘em, maybe…’ But he doesn’t complete the thought. He doesn’t let his eyes turn to his brother. Doesn’t watch him consider the unspoken.

‘Dean,’ he says, and the word feels like a death knell; feels like a tumour. It sticks in his throat where it bends out of shape.

‘You should have said something.’

Dean collapses. The air around him vacates. He shuts his eyes against Baby’s dark ceiling. His hands reach out without permission; one finds the door, the other finds Sam’s hand, and he grips to both like he’s drowning.

‘I should’ve been there, Sam.’

He can see his breath in the coldness. The water evaporates, and the fog disperses, and he watches the road disappear beneath the bonnet. The car consumes the tarmac until they’re miles and miles from the blood. And from here, it looks like they’re flying.

But Dean still feels like he’s falling.

‘I should’ve been there. Watching out for him.’

Dean turns to look out the window. The clouds too heavy for the sky hang low on the fields and shroud them in fog. The B pillar juts out in his vision and slices the world in two.

‘You were.’ Sam’s patient voice echoes in the cockpit. Dean takes back his hand.

‘You couldn’t have stopped it, Dean.’

Dean shuts his eyes. Nails bite into his palm and the world goes red. Black and red, and there’s blood, blood, blood in his mouth.

‘I was there too; I didn’t-’

‘He talked to me, Sam,’ Dean bites out. His voice tastes like dirt.

Silence hangs in the air. Static.

‘-When?’

Dean bites his tongue.

‘A lot,’ he grits out. ‘And I never listened. I never… I never _said_ anything.

‘I should have-’ His hands tremble. He fists them shut. ‘I should’ve-’

He breathes, and breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

‘He told me he was dying. He told me he didn’t want to leave.’ He can’t breathe. ‘I was trying- I was trying to get him out, but he wouldn’t leave.’

His words are like dirt. Iron. Sulphur. He can’t breathe.

‘He told me- he told me he didn’t matter,’ Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe. ‘He told me he was gonna kill himse-’

‘ _Dean!’_

The car screeches to a halt, wheel abandoned. Sam turns to his brother, grips his arm tightly. Dean heaves, lungs racking up air, too much at a time. The world collapses; closes in on him, and he falls down that dark pit, deeper and deeper and deeper. He falls and falls and falls.

‘Focus, Dean!’ Sam yells from the ground. ‘Focus!’ He yells from far away.

‘Think about the coldness. Focus on my hand on your arm. Does it hurt?’

Dean nods, gasping.

‘Good, now open your eyes- Good. What do you see?’

‘I see-’ he gasps. ‘I see the- the fog. And um- horizon. Sky. Baby.’

‘What can you hear?’

‘The uh- the birds. There are- birds. And voice. And the wind… blowing.’

‘Good.’ Sam releases his sleeve, leans back against the driver’s seat. He huffs out a relieved puff of air. ‘Good,’ he says, and he means it.

Dean thought his heart would die.

Dean breathes out slowly, heart fast but not dying. He breathes, then breathes, then breathes, then breathes.

Dean recognises the fence. It’s broken into three across his vision. The road has turned lighter grey, and the fog has cleared the fields. He can see the treeline. He feels closer to home than he has in a while.

‘He didn’t do it, you know,’ Sam says out of nowhere.

Dean turns to him. Frowns. The large figure covers the window, and he can only see out the windshield, in his peripheral.

He just watches Sam breathe.

‘Kill himself.’ Sam looks at him, briefly.

Dean shifts his gaze back to the road.

‘I know.’ Voice low.

‘I think you should remember that,’ Sam said.

‘He didn’t choose to go.’

The tires slow down as the car pulls up. Her engine rumbles softly until Sam turns the ignition. It cuts out, and the world is silent for a few moments while Sam thinks.

Dean moves for the door and steps out into the morning. Sam follows him to the door, and Dean pushes it open.

Jack startles awake, pulls away from the map table and pads over. He waits at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Hey,’ Dean greets vaguely, voice gruff and eyes lidded, hand folded around the duffle strap on his shoulder.

‘Hey,’ Sam follows behind him, voice an echo. ‘You been asleep in here?’

Jack looks back at the table guiltily. ‘Yeah. I wasn’t sure when you’d be back… I found a case!’

‘Sure’

‘No.’

Dean gives him an incredulous look. Sam looks appalled.

Dean looks back and forth between the other two, mouth open. He shuts it; withdraws.

‘ _Fine_ ,’ he submits. Then holds up a finger, ‘But not before food. And sleep. Some of us didn’t get any.’ He looks pointedly to Jack.

Sam holds up both hands. ‘Fine by me. You want anything to eat?’ he nods towards Jack.

Dean gives him another incredulous look.

Sam scoffs. ‘Fend for yourself, Jerk.’

‘Bitch,’ Dean mutters, and Sam ushers Jack in through the hallway.

The vault room falls quieter around him, and Dean stops for a moment to feel the pain in his chest.

He breathes in slowly.

‘I miss you, man,’ he whispers, and the wedge in his chest, in his heart, swells for a second before easing off.

Down the hallway he stops at the kitchen, sniffs the air. He pauses for a moment, watching Jack hovering near the oven as he observes Sam’s movements, expression painfully familiar. Unsure, Dean glances to his right, where the hallway bends into the darkness.

When he looks back, they’re both watching him with smiles on their faces, beckoning. With one last glance away, Dean drops his duffle bag, grins, and steps into the light of the kitchen to the smell of bacon.

**Author's Note:**

> And a sort of [sequel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23945914), if you will...
> 
> (I also love comments. So if you have time... *un-subtly gestures below*)


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